


The Fountain Weeps

by Ariss_Tenoh



Category: The Lions of Al-Rassan - Guy Gavriel Kay
Genre: Complete, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-27
Updated: 2013-12-27
Packaged: 2018-01-06 08:54:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,198
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1104881
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ariss_Tenoh/pseuds/Ariss_Tenoh
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Where sleeping lions lie.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Fountain Weeps

In the city of white marble and forgotten gardens, in the city famed for its rimmed pools and fountains, he sat and waited.

 

The worst of the afternoon heat had eased and the sky was turning slowly into shades of grey tinged with the red and orange of flames.

 

He lifted the glass to his lips and drank deeply.

 

"When I was little younger than you, I killed the last Khalif of Al-Rassan here." The voice was calm and soothing; with the beautiful cadences of a poet. "This was called the Garden of Desire. No one remembers its name now." He turned to look at the young man standing in the archway.

 

"Allow me to offer my heartfelt felicitations on your victory." He inclined his head.

 

"You're an Asharite," spat the young man with the travel-stained clothing. He strode forward to stop just short of the older man.

 

"Your father would have been pleased," was all the man would say. As if that was the reason.

 

"Don't speak his name! You of all people have no right." The young man's hand gripped the hilt of his sword hard, but did not draw it from its sheath. 

 

"No, I believe _I_ of all people am the one with the most right." An amused smile, bitter with irony, appeared on the older man's face. "I saw the new tomb. It's his due of course, but I believe Rodrigo would have hated it."

 

"Let us finish this. I swore I would kill you that day."

 

The wind blew with a mournful sound through the ruins of Al-Fontina. Marble arches and lion statues stood silent witnesses to their last admirer.

 

The man seated on the fountain's rim stood slowly. The signature pearl earring in his right ear swung back and forth.

 

"Yes. Come Belmonte, show me what twenty years have taught you." 

 

Swords slid out of their sheaths with the same hiss of poisoned snakes and struck against one another with the same clap of thunder......

 

.......... Diego Belmonte pushed his horse harder, faster. By Jad and Ashar and the Sisters, let it not be too late!

 

He urged his horse into the palace. Past the Court of Lions, past abandoned vestiges of glory and splendour. The sound of his horse's hooves striking the ground was almost blasphemous in the near mystical silence of this place. This place where the heart of Al-Rassan used to beat. 

 

Diego shot into the gardens and saw the two men exchanging blows in an intricate dance of parry and thrust and feint. Oh gods, Fernan didn't know!

 

"Fernan, stop this now!" He shouted, almost reaching them now. Just one more fountain to ride around.

 

And Diego saw it happen. Too late to stop.

 

His brother started at his sudden appearance and jerked for one small moment of eternity and the man he fought saw the opening and deliberately overextended. Fernan had no choice but to thrust his sword to block it... and the blade slid with ease into his opponent's chest.

 

Diego reined his horse harshly and jumped from the saddle before his mount even stopped. He knelt beside the fallen man and held him.

 

"Why ibn Khairan?" Helplessness threatened to overwhelm him.

 

Fernan stood rigid with shock. He realised that he'd been played, especially when he saw the man's left leg twitch and tense on its own. A crippled man. He'd killed a crippled man more than twice his age. No matter if this man had killed mighty kings and sung poems as rare and precious as pearls. No matter if this man was Ammar ibn Khairan, the celebrated soldier, poet, and diplomat who'd disappeared without a trace after a fateful day.

 

Ibn Khairan coughed blood. The blood stained his tunic red around his chest.

 

"So your brother would have his revenge. So his anger may die and not fester for all his life." Ibn Khairan laughed and choked on his own blood. "A poetic end. Poetic justice." His eyes were wandering, already glazing. 

 

"Father wouldn't have wanted this. He'd want you to live." Diego had tears in his eyes for some inexplicable reason. 

 

Ibn Khairan's hand touched Diego's cheek. "The seer and the warrior. He would be proud of you. All Esperana now... it's gone.. 'Rassan is no more."

 

Fernan stepped closer. His shadow fell across Ibn Khairan's face. He was still angry but the blinding rage that gripped him earlier had receded. "So you thought you should die too? What kind of stupid reasoning is that?" His younger brother shot him a quelling look.

 

"Your father will be angry." Ibn Khairan smiled at them. "I'll see him soon.."

 

Diego's hands tightened on the man's blood soaked clothes.

 

"You're an Asharite. What makes you think you'll see him in Jad's Paradise?"

 

He was going to punch his brother, really he would....

 

_Ammar ibn Khairan's eyes are closed. His breathing is ragged. "Does not the sky hold the sun, stars and moons in her arms?" And with that last effort, the last lion of Al-Rassan......_

 

...................... The sun had set and the first stars appeared in the darkening sky. 

 

Diego lit the pyre.

 

The Belmonte brothers stood together watching the flames crackle and flare, slowly devouring the body laid in its midst. They were twins, identical in every way physically. Yet one brother wore an expression of deep sadness on his face, while the other wore a soldier's impassive mask. 

 

The smoke rose in spirals and waves to the sky. The stars shone brighter in the night sky.

 

"Mother is going to kill you," Diego commented as if continuing a conversation.

 

Fernan's jaw tightened and he said nothing.

 

"I'll write to Ammar ibn Khairan's friends in Sorenica. The Kindath physician will want to know."

 

"She married one of father's soldiers right?" Fernan tried to talk to his brother, sensing his twin's anger and disappointment. The latter hurt Fernan more than the first.

 

"Yes, she did." 

 

They stood watching till the pyre collapsed on itself. The air was heavy and sullen; a storm was coming. 

 

Diego gathered the ashes into a broken urn he found and together with his brother mounted and rode to a hill overlooking the city. He held the urn up into the wind and it passed its unseen fingers and spread the ashes over the ruins.

 

"I don't understand, Diego." Fernan turned slightly in the saddle and watched his brother toss the urn away.

 

Diego gazed at the ruins of the embodiment of Al-Rassan. Of once invincible lions.

 

"It's all right, Fernan. I think it's what he wanted. It's time for lions to sleep; their age is past." He bestowed a gentle sad smile on his brother and with a last look at the palace, they rode away towards the new capital. Towards Esteren.

 

......... Years would pass and the ruins of Silvenes would remain; like a broken necklace whose lady cannot throw away for sheer sentiment.

 

Some people would say it is a sacred place. Some would say it is haunted. Others would say Jad preserved it as a reminder of the infidels' corruption and decadence.

 

The poets and singers, though, would say that the souls of the dead yet walk among us. 

 

~ End ~

**Author's Note:**

> Written March 4 2007.


End file.
